Mental Health and Relationships

I recently gave a talk on mental health as it relates to relationships and , alhamdulillah , I received very good feedback , so I decided to convert that into a podcast episode for the rest of you to benefit from it . Inshallah , it was given in a very informal setting but alhamdulillah , it has a lot of golden nuggets in it .

It talks about an alternate definition of mental health as well as how we can use our relationships for our mental health . Send me feedback about what you think and I look forward to hearing from you . Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim , assalamu alaikum everyone . Thank you so much for having me here . Thank you to South Florida Muslim Federation .

Their efforts in regards to the acceptance of mental health as a common notion are admirable and I am honored to be a part of that effort . My name is Dr Kamal Akhtar . I am a board certified internal medicine physician and I practice hospital medicine , but neuroscience is positive psychology . Mental health is my passion and that is my second career .

I do mindset coaching for Muslim women in that regard , and today I want to talk to you about mental health as it relates to relationships , inshallah . So first we talk about mental health and we attempt to define it . What is mental health ? How do you define it ?

Mental health currently , as it is understood , is thought of as a lack of mental illness , and that is a very low standard . It is meant that if you don't have mental illness , it must mean that you're mentally healthy , and that is not ideal . It must mean that you're mentally healthy , and that is not ideal . That , to me , is a very low standard .

Yes , there are people who are actually suffering from genetic neurobiological alterations , deficits . That results in depression , bipolar disorder , schizophrenia , but for the most part , most psychological disorders are not pathologic . They are created . And how are they created ? That is a big statement . So stay with me , and during this talk that will become more visible .

So , first definition that we want to negate is mental health , is not just the absence of mental illness , and I want to start out by negating three definitions that are most commonly accepted of mental health , and the reason behind that is subhanallah I borrow that from the kalima which is first we negate la ilaha illallah , first we negate that there is no god

except allah worthy of worship . So the notion of negation is very important . First we have to figure out what is wrong so we can set that aside and then we can build on what is right . So the first notion of mental health that is wrong , that is a lack of mental illness .

The second notion that is wrong about mental health is that , for the most part , when we think of mental illness , the second notion that is wrong about mental health is that for the most part , when we think of mental health , we think about it of being happy . If I am happy , that must mean I'm mentally healthy .

If I am content , peaceful , if I'm feeling all the serene , open , positive emotions , that must mean I am mentally healthy . In this day and age , the happier you feel , the more mentally healthy you're thought to be . And let me tell you , life as we know it on this earth , on this planet , is not supposed to be happy all the time .

If you've been alive on this planet , you might notice that life comes with challenges . Don't think the challenges are particular to you . Every human being on this planet goes through challenges . That is the nature of life on earth . So the second notion we are disregarding is that mental health means being happy all the time .

The third notion that we want to negate is that mental health means a sense of psychological and emotional well-being . It's a little bit of a better definition , I mean , I'm not gonna lie . It has the words psychological in it , it has the word emotional in it , has the word well-being in it .

It's a good definition overall , but it does not cut it to my standard because with that definition that would mean when you are not having a sense of well-being , you are not mentally healthy , which is yet another wrong notion . So , when we are negating these three definitions , what is it that we are affirming ?

And what we are affirming is what this talk is about , and I'm going to give you through the lens of relationships , and that is that first thing we are affirming , and I'm going to build on this concept . The first piece , foundational piece of definition , of understanding mental health , or what I call to be exceptional mental health .

First concept you have to understand is that your thoughts create your emotions . Your circumstances or the things that are outside of you do not create your emotions . Simple enough , but it's difficult , much more difficult to apply . People in your life do not make you happy . People in your life do not make you mad , sad , upset .

People in your life are circumstances . They're factual , they exist outside of you , they're out of your control . Your circumstances do not cause you to be happy or sad . Money does not cause you to worry , unless you think that I don't have enough of it , or where is this month's paycheck going to come from ? Money is neutral . Money is a circumstance .

Money is outside of your control . So when we think of circumstances , we are taught that circumstances or people outside of us create our emotions . They don't . Human beings bring thoughts to a situation and these thoughts are responsible for our internal experience , which we call emotions , which we call our experience of a situation .

So Allah swt made the universe and made a human to interpret the signs of the universe , and he left it on the human being by giving him free will if he's going to interpret the signs or not , and if he's going to interpret the signs correctly or not . So our brain is designed to be a meaning assigning machine and it does it extremely effectively .

It assigns a situation a meaning and it labels it a fact . It says what I think the situation to be is a fact . So everyone is running around going through their lives thinking what I think is factual . That is the primary job of the brain . There's nothing wrong if that's what you think .

That's what your brain is designed to do and it does it extremely effectively . So how does it apply to mental health ? So when we come to a situation and we say that this person caused me up , to be upset , this person who is blurting out Islamophobic rhetoric caused me anger , hate . It caused me fear for my life .

You have assigned your experience , you have assigned your emotional well-being to this other person , and that's what we do in our relationships and that is extremely detrimental to our mental health . So a component of exceptional mental health how I define it is to take ownership of that experience .

And you do that by remembering that what you're interpreting your situation to be is actually your lens , that you're looking at the world through . The world does not give you thoughts , you assign it thoughts . So it's not an outside in experience , it's an inside out experience .

So if you think of it in those terms , it's extremely empowering because what you assign the world , the meaning to be , is in your control , because your thoughts are in your control , and that is how we optimize for exceptional mental health and when you optimize . It's a skill , it's something that you continue to practice .

I , to this day , having come to this work four years ago , am still optimizing my mental health on a daily basis and I protect it . I fiercely protect it because my default wiring or my nuffs or the shaitan's whispers otherwise work to keep me mentally unfit . Think of it as going to the gym , you lift weights , your muscles will get bigger .

If you work out , you will be physically fit , but you have to put the effort in default is , if you sit on a couch , your muscles will wither away . When we come to creating mental health , it is something that you have to put effort and it's not monumental effort , it's not unachievable , it's not super difficult . It's just something , some concept .

If you get right at the basic level , it's extremely easy to maintain . So the first part of accept mental health is having the understanding that your thoughts create your emotions . People in your life , the ones that you are in a relationship with , do not create your emotions .

And the second part is to take control of those thoughts , is to learn the art of directing your mind to think what serves you , and this is the biggest part of exceptional emotional

health . Because when we think we're meant to be happy all the time on this earth , then we drop into hustle energy , we drop into , we drop into continuously working to make more money , because that seems to be buying happiness . And money is not a bad thing . Trust me , I am a big proponent of making as much money as you would like .

I'm just using that as an example because we think that if we can manipulate our circumstances , if we can buy enough things , if we can vacation enough , if we can buy enough presents for our gifts , for our spouse , if we can shower them with everything , every privilege , then they will act a certain way and then we will feel happy .

That is a very roundabout , very indirect , very disempowering way to feel happy .

So when you're coming to a life circumstance thinking you're supposed to be happy and you insist on happiness life's circumstance thinking you're supposed to be happy and you insist on happiness you say yeah , but I have all of these privileges , I could be happy all of the time and you're allowed to insist for your happiness a hundred percent of the time , like

you're totally allowed . Especially living in the western world . It seems like we're so privileged that it is almost sacrilege to admit to our unhappiness at times . But just know that if you insist on being happy all the time , that would mean that you have to be happy when difficult things happen in the world .

When there's occupation , you have to insist on being happy .

When there is Islamophobia , when there's discrimination in public school because of your child's skin color , when there's racism , when there's apartheid , when there is an earthquake , you have to insist on being happy when difficult circumstances happen in the world , and that is the recipe of being emotionally and mentally unwell , unless there's a sociopathy , in which case ,

like that's justified because sociopaths don't feel negative emotions . They could just suppress them . So , with these two components , your thoughts create your emotions . You can have control over your thoughts and you're not supposed to be happy 100% of the time . You come to a .

Which is my definition of mental health is that you practice agency over your thoughts to create an emotion that is appropriate for the situation and that is optimal mental health .

When you leave here , I want you to start practicing this skill of separating yourself from the situation , inserting what thought you're bringing to the situation , exercising control over that thought , over that interpretation , over that language , and then asking yourself what do I have to think about the situation that will serve me ?

And sometimes the answer is the thought should be this is a horrible situation and I feel horrible as a result of it , and that is going to be appropriate and that is perfectly fine .

So when I suggest this , the objection I get is but you're telling me that I should be feeling negative emotions and then , if I allow that , that's just going to take my life over , because there's just so much happening in the world .

There's so much injustice , there's so much difficulty , and the ironic part is , when you allow yourself to be in a negative experience , it actually shrinks . When you escape from it , it gets bigger and it takes over your life .

So the way to think about that is life is always 50-50 for everyone , every human being on this planet , regardless of their religious beliefs , regardless of their race , ethnicity , age , regardless of their financial status . It doesn't matter if they're an employee , it doesn't matter if they're a venture capitalist .

With every hardship there is ease and it's going to be handed to you as a package . Life is always going to be 50 50 . So when you are not resisting the negative emotion , you can allow yourself to be in grief of a loss . You can allow yourself to be in grief of a loss . You can allow yourself to be in grief of somebody else's loss .

When you think about the earthquake happening in Turkey , it's the amount of financial and human lives lost . It's like my mind is blown with the amount of loss and grief that those people must be experiencing and it's okay for you to reciprocate that . So let me tell you what has us indulging in this negative experience more than we need to .

If we allow life to be 50-50 , we can say half of our experiences in our life are just going to be unpleasant , and that's just how it is . It allows us to accept it . That way , we take the judgment of the negative experience out of the equation .

So if we consider this 50-50 ratio to be factual , then we have to consider why does it seem that life seems so difficult most of the time ? Why does it seem that the ratio is skewed , that the scale is tipped towards it being more difficult

than easy ? And the reason is shaitan . So we're told in our religion that we're supposed to have shaitan whispering in our ears . It's going to come from the front and the back and the side and the top . So if you follow the Quranic ayahs , there's a whole story that unfolds how Iblis didn't prostrate . Allah SWT said how come ?

And I don't want to butcher the ayahs , I don't have them memorized by any means , but you've heard that story how Iblis asked Dua to give him enough freedom to lead mankind astray until they're on this planet . And Allah SWT , despite of his transgression , granted him that dua .

So when Iblis whispers in our ears , it says things like this grief shouldn't be there . This is wrong . This feels really bad . We must eliminate this . And then the economic forces of the world tell us to buy things to escape with vacationing , to eat things , to eat out our emotions , to escape with any means necessary .

That involves spending money so that somebody else can get rich . So we have this internal voice that puts us in judgment of our authentic , required negative experience . That is something that is required for you to grow , to learn from as a human being on this planet .

That negative experience , the 50 negative percent of the life you cannot run from , you cannot save yourself from , you cannot save your children from . When we try to save our children from that negative experience is when the helicopter parenting comes in , is when the lawnmower .

Parenting comes in is when all the rest of the other parenting formats that we currently talk about . So Iblis says that 50% is not supposed to be there . There's something wrong with you . You're mentally unwell and you escape to create more pain .

On the other side of the escape , you either go into debt because you spent too much , you're either overweight because you eat too much , and that results in more unwellness physical and mental than it originally promised you you would get if you just escaped it .

So the resistance of the negative 50% of the life causes the mental illness that we currently call mental illness , which is not mental illness , it's not a diagnosis . If you're feeling depressed about being depressed , we call it generalized depression and we start medications .

But if you have depression , if you are feeling sad about feeling sad , then we call that depression and we give you medications . They'll work because they'll alter the neurochemical balance in your brain and they'll start to work and you'll start to feel better a little bit .

But at the same time , the next time something hits and you don't know how to deal with it , you don't know how to experience the negative , you don't know embodiment , you don't know what your mind or body is going through , you've never learned to give yourself grace and room to experience that , then you can never become okay with that .

Then it becomes finding another doctor , finding another therapist , finding another pill , and those modalities are absolutely necessary . I am a practicing physician . I prescribe those medications . I practice that . I am a proponent of it . But there is a time and a place . Majority of us do not have mental illness .

Majority of us are just in judgment of our negative experience and trying to escape from it , never learning how to deal with it . Never learning that it's normal . Never learning that it's okay for me to be upset when I'm in a fight with my spouse . Never learning that these relationships are supposed to have ruptures and repairs .

They're supposed to have moments of connection and disconnection and that is okay . Most of us are working on the Hollywood version of relationships . So you have to start teaching our kids that . You have to start embodying that ourselves . You have to start practicing

it . We've talked a lot about the negative 50% of the life's experience . I want you to start also concentrating on the positive 50% of the life's experience , when you are in a position to create thoughts that bring you gratitude , thoughts being a lens of your mind a story that you create about the situation , gratitude being your emotion .

When you create gratitude , immer . Gratitude being your emotion . When you create gratitude , immerse yourself in it , practice it . You have a car to go to work . Think about how much gratitude that brings you . You have health . You have children . You have money . Think about how much gratitude that brings you . You have fingernails , you have eyesight , you have hair .

You have a skin that keeps all the germs . There's innumerable things that you can think about that comprises of the 50% of the other positive 50% of life . Immerse yourself into the joy .

Immerse yourself into having resources that you can go on vacation , you can take your family places that you can take time , family places that you can take time off , that you can be at the masjid , that there's resources .

Immerse yourself in the positive experience , because when shaitan has you dwelling on the negative , it seems like the negative 50% expands to be 90 or 100% of our lives and we forget the underlying 50% that's supposed to be happy .

And that extension of negative 50% that bleeds into our positive experiences is the cause of mental unwellness , which I can't label as mental illness , a very niched , very well studied subject . Human beings have neurochemical disorders that cause all of the mental illnesses there are .

But for us to consider ourselves mentally ill because we haven't been taught all of this is is a real disservice . So , inshallah , I pray that you guys make the most of the positive experiences in your life .

Immerse yourself in the joy , immerse yourself in the contentment that you find in your prayers , immerse yourself in the belief system that you're born with or you're practicing or you converted into that is Islam and celebrate it , become joyous , and that's actually a podcast that I actually recently did about apprehension of joy .

You will get to see that , alhamdulillah , there is mental health , alhamdulillah , all of these relationships are a part and parcel of life and alhamdulillah , we are able to fulfill our obligations in all of these relationships .